Child's Garden Research Articles

Fostering Children's Interests in Gardening

Despite the rapidly growing interest in children's gardens and attention to the positive benefits of gardening for children, little is known about the ways in which young people actually form interests in gardening. Using a sample of 9- and 10-year-old children at a school garden site in New York State, this study examined the ways in which gender, length of time working with the garden project, different types of gardening activities, and garden skills learned influenced interests in gardening. Regression analysis indicated that gardening skills had the strongest effect on gardening interest, followed by participation in planning and management activities, gender, and length of time. The total effect of planting activities was small. Adults working with school- and community-based children's gardens should identify ways to engage children and youth more fully in all phases of garden design, implementation, and maintenance. Attention also should be given to ways to involve boys. Additional research should focus on youth of different ages, different types of gardening settings, and additional aspects of the gardening experience, such as youth–adult partnerships and peer relationships.

The Garden Wonder Wall: Fostering Wonder and Curiosity on Multi-Day Garden Field Trips

Field trips to the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden must provide rich science learning experiences for students and teachers. A key to this is getting students to ask questions. To facilitate student question asking we developed the Wonder Wall, a “wall” where students could write their questions. Student questions were answered as part of the field trip and written answers were provided following the field trip. Nearly 75% of the 455 2nd and 3rd grade students in this study posted questions. Questions were both basic information (50%) and wonderment (50%). Basic information questions were simple questions that focused on the garden, plants, staff, and field trip activities. Wonderment questions were more complex questions that focused on field trip learning activities. The 50% wonderment questions was greater than expected, suggesting that students posted these questions after carefully thinking about what they had learned. Student questions provided a real-time assessment of student understanding and interests. Wonderment questions could easily be extended into an experiment, giving students the opportunity to direct their own learning. The Wonder Wall is a simple, easily integrated tool that engaged students in asking questions. It provided educators with valuable insights into student understanding and interests. The Wonder Wall was a powerful part of our field trips and we recommend incorporating it into field trips where ever possible.

Designing a Children's Water Garden as an Outdoor Learning Lab for Environmental Education

A Clemson University introductory landscape design class collaborated with South Carolina Botanical Gardens (SCBG) staff and coordinators of Sprouting Wings to design an exploratory Children's Garden within the SCBG. Service learning provides students with invaluable real-world experiences solving problems and interacting with clients while contributing to the local community. Project methodology included research, site selection and analysis, conceptual diagrams, preliminary designs, and full-color renderings of final designs. Based on children's desire for water play and on current issues in water quality and the need for environmental education, clients and students designed a Wonders of Water Garden that can be used as a model at other institutions. The design celebrates the beauty of water, and showcases the integral relationships among plants, wildlife, and water. The interactive garden will create awareness of current water quality issues, promote environmental stewardship, and serve as a model to teach visitors of all ages the vital role water plays in the environment.

Growing Youth Growing Food: How Vegetable Gardening Influences Young People's Food Consciousness and Eating Habits

Much attention is currently being paid to rising rates of obesity, especially among youth. In this context, garden-based education can have a role in improving public health. A qualitative study conducted at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) Children's Garden provides supporting evidence for the claim that growing vegetables can improve the nutrition behavior of young gardeners. It finds that positive social interaction during gardening, harvesting, sharing, preparing, and eating produce may influence young people's food consciousness and eating habits. Recommendations are made for using the social interaction in garden-based learning settings to positively influence youth's food consciousness and nutrition.

Excerpts: Principles of Designing a Garden for Children

Excerpts: Principles of Designing a Garden for Children

Children's Garden Consultants: A New Model of Engaging Youth to Inform Garden Design and Programming

This paper discusses a unique garden and youth-focused event in which a group of 4-H youth engaged in a “children's garden consultants” program. Over a 3-day period, seven teenaged youth were given the opportunity to actively research children's garden design and educational programming, and then present recommendations to an adult audience of children's garden experts and youth development specialists. Surveys, observations, and discussions with youth, adults in attendance, and program organizers indicated the event was highly valuable and worth repeating. It provided a new learning opportunity for youth, and it also gave adults new perspectives on gardens. The youth's ideas for improving children's gardens and suggestions for future programming are presented as well.

Ian Hamilton Finlay and the commonplace - book to garden and back

The interchange between gardens and the book is extensive. There is the garden (in the form of perfected nature) considered as book: Jacques'ssomewhat dyspeptic speech about this topos - 'sermons in stones, books in the running brooks' - in Shakespeare's As You like It is well known. There is then the book considered as a garden, a complete collection of pleasing or edifying items - hence A Child's Garden of Verses, and other such titles. There are, of courses, a multitude of books on gardens, and they spread sometimes like crab grass through the tended lawns of more elevated treatises and scholarly publications. There are also not a few gardens designed to be read like books, as with the calligraphic texts found at the Alhambra or me Taj Mahal, or even designed as books, like Siah Armajani's courtyard garden for the Lannan Foundation in Los Angeles, based with relentless literalism on a poem of Wallace Stevens. There are also gardens designed in books, such as Bernard Palissy's Récite Véritable for a site dedicated to exemplifying and adding its own celebration to Psalm 104; too, there are gardens that we can almost imagine as having been designed and laid out although they exist only in books from Spencer's Bower of Bliss or Rousseau's 'Elysium' for Julie to Howards End. And there are gardens designed painstakingly from books, carefully following published recipes and prescriptions for ideal layouts (thelate eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries yield many examples of this).

Brooklyn Botanic Garden Children's Gardening Program: A Survey of Alumni

Children's gardening programs are growing in popularity. Among public gardens, Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG) hosts the oldest children's gardening program in the United States. Founded in 1914, the Brooklyn Botanic Garden Children's Gardening Program (BBG CGP) has succeeded in involving a steady flow of children year after year, creating an environment where children have the opportunity to interact with nature. Over 35,000 children have participated in the BBG CGP since its inception in 1914. A mail survey was conducted of alumni of the BBG CGP to identify how the program has affected their adult lives. A random sample of 700 participants was selected from the BBG CGP alumni records. The survey consisted of five major sections: 1) current gardening interest; 2) involvement with public gardens; 3) current involvement with children's gardening programs; 4) childhood experiences in the BBG CGP; and 5) demographic variables. Preliminary results suggest that the participants' childhood development and learning skills gained from this program have played an important role in their adult lives and that they regard the BBG CGP as having great value in their lives. Additional results and impacts of the program will be presented.

Children's Garden in Residence Program at the Minnesota Landscape Arboretum

The Minnesota Landscape Arboretum has been educating urban youth in a garden setting through the Children's Garden in Residence program located in Minneapolis, Minn., for 20 years. The program partners with community groups to teach pre-K to 4th grade students about the wonders of science and nature. The program presently educates between 100 and 120 children each summer. In addition to serving more children, the program curriculum and activities have evolved through the years, developing, trying, redesigning, and trying again curricula to meet the needs of urban children. The result of this process is a program that emphasizes hands-on, garden-based lessons in science, nutrition, and art. We are in the process of documenting the curricula used in the program. This paper will discuss the history of the program, highlight a few units used at the different grade levels, and discuss the documentation process.

The Project Green Reach Summer Program at Brooklyn Botanic Garden: A Case Study

Project Green Reach (PGR) is a part of the Children's Gardening Program at Brooklyn Botanic Garden (BBG), a public garden regarded as a model program for garden-based youth education. PGR utilizes the indoor classroom and outdoor laboratory to engage K-8 students and teachers at Brooklyn's Title I schools in informal science learning. Every year, PGR instructors accept a group of students into the summer program where they work in teams on garden projects at BBG. Students who participate in this program often come from challenging home and school environments. Anecdotal evidence reveals that after participating in the summer program, these students quickly develop improved confidence and academic skills, evolving into scientists and gardeners. The purpose of this study is to investigate the effects of a gardening program on inner city youth and to document the PGR summer program as a potential model for informal science youth education in the public garden forum. Field observations of PGR summer program participants and program document collection were conducted during the 2004 Summer Program. This was followed by interviews of adult PGR Summer Program alumni and former staff who discussed their experiences while participating in the program and described the meaning of PGR in their lives. Preliminary results have revealed the positive impact PGR has had on participants' lives, indicating that PGR affected their childhood development, relationships with family members and friends, and their views on BBG, gardening, and science. Findings from the in-depth analysis of the interviews, observations and document review will be presented.

INCORPORATING CREATIVE LEARNING INTO HORTICULTURE CLASSES

The Clemson University Communication Across The Curriculum program is coordinating a creative response for learning (CRL) project to provide students with creative learning and critical thinking opportunities relevant to course content while creating a learning community. Faculty representing numerous disciplines asked their students to respond with creative projects (e.g., drawings, poems, posters, multimedia, sculpture, music, etc.) to the subject matter of the course. Students in Horticulture courses responded by writing poems in a Landscape Appreciation class, designing creative solutions to environmental problems in a Landscape Design Class, and installing an Ethnobotany Garden in a landscape implementation class. The landscape design and implementation classes used a service learning methodology to identify and solve problems in local communities. Following a four-part process of preparation, action, reflection, and celebration, students in the design class completed plans for thirteen theme gardens constituting a Children's garden in the South Carolina Botanical Garden. The following semester, landscape implementation students built the first of the series, an Ethnobotany Garden, using teamwork and university/community partnerships. They also practiced individual creative thinking and building skills through the design and installation of creative projects including a bat house, a stained glass and a broken tile birdhouse, four container gardens, artistic stepping-stones, and a dramatic metal sculpture of a butterfly representing the sustainable wildlife habitat aspect of the Children's garden. College students and faculty working on the Ethnobotany Garden project alone contributed over 1,000 hours to their community while learning more about both the art and the science of landscape design and implementation.

DESIGNING A CHILDREN'S WATER GARDEN IN THE SOUTH CAROLINA BOTANICAL GARDEN AS AN OUTDOOR LEARNING LAB FOR ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION

During the fall semester of 2003, a Clemson University introductory landscape design class collaborated with South Carolina Botanical Gardens staff and coordinators of Sprouting Wings, an after school gardening program for at risk children, to design an exploratory Children's Garden within the Botanical Gardens. Project methodology included site selection, research, site analysis, conceptual diagrams, preliminary designs, and full color renderings of final designs. Students periodically presented their progress on the project to the clients in order to receive feedback and advice. One of the thirteen themed gardens designed is the Wonders of Water Garden. Project goals were to create a center for environmental education addressing current issues in water quality such as pollution from industries and runoff, erosion, stream degradation, and sedimentation resulting from land clearing and development. Visitors will be able to observe and learn about various environmental factors affecting native plant and animal life. The garden will help to teach environmental stewardship and understanding of general aquatic ecology. An observation deck, serpentine bridge through a bog garden, and a bridge crossing a waterfall stream will allow close observation of native aquatic plant and animal life. The Wonders of Water Garden design includes the bog garden and carnivorous garden that border two pools connected by a stream of small waterfalls which may be used to create awareness of current water quality issues and serve as a model to teach visitors the importance of water and aquatic plants in the environment.

Late and Somewhere Firm: Notes on Stan Brakhage’s Vancouver Island Films

Bien qu’au cours des années 1990, Stan Brakhage fut de plus en plus préoccupé par la gravure sur pellicule, il réalisa aussi les remarquables films de photographie qui forment trois des quatre parties de la série connue sous le titre collectif « Vancouver Island Quartet ». Cet article se concentre sur A Child’s Garden and the Serious Sea et The Mammals of Victoria pour examiner le retour au paysage proclamé par Brakhage au début des années 1990. D’abord, l’auteur compare Visions in Mediation #2 : Mesa Verde, et sa projection d’intimations subjectives, à A Child’’s Garden et son projet de révélation de la première biographie de Marilyn Jull Brakhage en prenant comme sujet le jardin d’enfance de cette dernière. Puis, l’auteur compare ce film à The Mammals of Victoria, dont l’approche semble plus contemplative.

Robert Louis Stevenson and the colonial imagination

Contents: Introduction Stevenson and the South Sea missionaries Stevenson's pyjamas Colonies of memory Lighting up the darkness Stevenson's political imagination The juvenile missionary magazines and A Child's Garden of Verses Bibliography Index.

Designing a Children's Garden for Experiential Learning in the South Carolina Botanical Garden

An interdisciplinary team of Clemson Univ. faculty, graduate students, and undergraduate students partnered with the South Carolina Botanical Garden staff and children from the “Sprouting Wings” after-school garden program to plan and design a 2.5-acre Children's Garden. Imaginative and educational, the plans call for a series of outdoor theme gardens. Proposals for 13 theme gardens include a “Dinosaur Dig”, a “Food for Thought Garden”, a “Hide-and-Seek Garden”, a “Terraced Sitting Garden”, an “Ethnobotany Garden”, a “Wonders of Water Garden”, a “Learning from Nature Outdoor Classroom”, a “Carolina Fence Garden”, a “Cottage Garden”, a “Bold View Butterfly Garden”, a “Woodland Wonderland”, a “Playful Plaza Garden,” and an “Arbored Entrance and Exit Garden.” Project methodology included research, case studies, site analysis, program development, preliminary plans, master plan, and individual garden designs with plan views, elevation drawings, detail drawings, and plant lists. Using an experiential learning pedagogy, a design class of 15 students contributed an estimated 2,000 hours of work while learning about landscape design. Results included 30 drawing boards depicting research, analysis, and design proposals, which were presented to the South Carolina Botanical Garden Staff for approval in Fall 2003. Note: This material is based upon work supported by the cooperative State Research, Education, and Extension service, U.S. Dept. of Agriculture, under Agreement No. 2002-38411-122122. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the view of the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture.

The Charleston Area Children's Garden Project: A Community Sponsored Initiative

The Charleston Area Children's Garden Project is a community-sponsored initiative affiliated with the Clemson Univ. Coastal Research and Education Center and the Landscapes for Learning Program. The Project transforms vacant lots and other unused spaces into neighborhood outdoor learning centers. Garden activities are free and open to all. The children plan, plant, and tend the garden under the supervision and guidance of adult Garden Leaders. Whatever is grown, the children take home. A “sidewalk learning session” is held in the garden each week. At these sessions, the garden manager, parents, neighbors, or visitors teach the youngsters about garden-related topics from insects to siphons, from origami to pickling, and a multitude of other topics designed to stimulate learning and child participation. The Project is designed to give children a hands-on learning experience outside the classroom setting, to make neighborhoods more attractive, and to build a sense of community. The Project is totally funded by grant monies and has grown from one garden in 2000 to ten gardens in 2004. Gardens are planted with the involvement of neighborhood associations, the Boys and Girls Clubs, the Homeless Shelter, and in conjunction with after-school programs. The Project makes use of such resources as The Growing Classroom and the Junior Master Gardener Teaching Guide. An array of program materials has been developed that are designed for use in the coastal communities of South Carolina.

Conceptualising Childhood: Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses

The paper discusses the construct of childhood in Robert Louis Stevenson's collection of poems, 'A Child's Garden of Verses', by employing notions of child development drawn from Piaget and Vygotsky. From a literary perspective Stevenson's collection is located on the boundaries of Romanticism and Modernism.

Through A Child's Garden Toward a Neurological Aesthetic of Children's Literature

Through A Child's Garden Toward a Neurological Aesthetic of Children's Literature Lucy Rollin (bio) Over the past twenty years, our knowledge of the human brain has accelerated at a rate most of us could hardly foresee. Thanks to imaging technology, scientists have mapped the brain in remarkable depth and detail, bringing new insights into the mind/brain relationship, brain development, and cognition. Knowledge about how neurons work is already affecting our daily interactions with medicine. How then might it affect our intellectual lives as scholars of children's literature-that complicated intersection of child and adult, word and image, feeling and thought? In this speculative essay, I will examine some of the recent information on brain development and function, and I will do so in the context of thinking about its relevance to Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses as an aesthetic experience. When I began to work on this essay, I chose Stevenson's Garden because it was handy, and I was already thinking about it for other purposes. As I reshaped the essay and read others' thoughts on Stevenson, it turned out to be a lucky choice because Garden is rich with the very possibilities I needed to explore. A little basic information may be helpful as a beginning point. From its origin in a single cell, the brain rapidly acquires billions of neurons-the cells that integrate and transmit information to, from, and within the brain-at the "astonishing rate of 250,000 per minute" (Thompson 319). Although the brain's development is finally a "profound mystery" (Thompson 320), a great deal is known about how the brain functions. The process which conveys the experiences of our bodies in the external world through our sense organs to our brains is accomplished through connections between neurons called synapses. A normal human brain may have as many as a trillion synapses, most of which function through the release of chemicals such as norepinephrine and dopamine at those points of communication. Especially dramatic, however, is the proliferation of neurons and the increased density of synapses in the brains of children from birth to about age fourteen. The child brain has as much as one hundred percent more synapses than the adult brain. Synaptic density peaks at about two to three years of age in humans, remains stable until about age five, and then declines, reaching at puberty the density level that lasts until old age (Chechik 1759). The presence of dopamine, one of the most active chemical transmitters in neural function, has been also tracked across age groups. Not surprisingly, considering the level of synaptic density at these ages, dopamine levels increase dramatically in the first years of life, peaking at about age five (Tamminga 168). Children two to five years old, then, are capable of processing approximately double the amount of information from the external world, and from inside their bodies, than they ever will again in their lives. A Child's Garden of Verses evokes the intensity of this sensory experience in childhood, especially in its reliance on visual imagery. Seeing seems to be the dominant mode in these poems. For example, the "Looking-Glass River" and "The Cow" are passionately observed. "The Wind" can be seen only through its actions and so frustrates the child watcher: "I saw the different things you did, / But always you yourself you hid" (25). In "Escape at Bedtime," the child slips out of bed to observe "thousands of millions of stars" through his window, and when the adults find him and pack him off to bed, there "the glory kept shining and bright in my eyes, / And the stars going round in my head" (21). All alone in "The Land of Nod," the child finds the strangest things are there for me,Both things to eat and things to see,And many frightening sights abroadTill morning in the Land of Nod. (16) The child in the poems sees his shadow, the bird on the windowsill, the sea rising in the holes he has dug on the beach, smoke from distant fires in autumn, and imaginary armies in the fires at home: "Armies march by...

Medical Musings about Intergeneration Design Phenomena at the 4-H Children's Garden

The use made of the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden by two groups is considered. Children are the most frequent user group; however, senior citizens are the second most frequent visitor type to use the garden space. Because of this dichotomy in user groups, an examination of the site design from the perspective of a behaviourist and medical practitioner was prompted. An investigation of site features and layout suggests that the underlying principles that were applied in designing the 64 garden teaching areas for children also serve the senior citizens. An explanation of how principles of design have application in the creation of garden spaces for individuals separated by over two generations of age is presented.

Medical Musings about Intergeneration Design Phenomena at the 4-H Children's Garden

The use made of the Michigan 4-H Children's Garden by two groups is considered. Children are the most frequent user group; however, senior citizens are the second most frequent visitor type to use the garden space. Because of this dichotomy in user groups, an examination of the site design from the perspective of a behaviourist and medical practitioner was prompted. An investigation of site features and layout suggests that the underlying principles that were applied in designing the 64 garden teaching areas for children also serve the senior citizens. An explanation of how principles of design have application in the creation of garden spaces for individuals separated by over two generations of age is presented.